Executive Assistants
Executive assistant duties: 5 unexpected ways an EA can support you
Jun 23, 2025
5 min read
What are some executive assistant duties you should delegate? There are a lot of responsibilities an executive assistant can take on besides admin tasks, but here are 5 that most Viva EAs have done for their customers: EAs can manage:
- Financial operations
- Support HR
- Lead company-wide initiatives
- Provide support on personal matters
- Step in when you’re out of office.
If you’ve only been delegating email, calendar, travel planning, and one or two special projects, you’re getting a decent amount of support, but you’re definitely not leveraging your EA to their fullest extent.
This is what some Viva EAs are doing for their customers, so take notes and start getting the executive support you need and deserve.
Table of contents:
- How can an executive assistant manage your billing, payments, and financial operations?
- How can your executive assistant run HR, compliance, and onboarding?
- How can your executive assistant manage IT, access, and company-wide initiatives?
- How can your executive assistant support you personally and with customer-facing work?
- How can your executive assistant step in when you’re out of office?
1. How can an executive assistant manage your billing, payments, and financial operations?
If your CFO is constantly swamped, they could benefit from having an executive assistant. You might think an EA is not the right person to handle financial operations due to the sensitive nature of the role, but many of our customers are delegating billing, payments, and other financial matters to their executive assistant.
Andrea, the EA to the Director of Finance at a startup based in New York, took ownership of broader finance processes. The company lacked a system to track expenses or client payments, leaving the Director of Finance solely responsible for processing vendor payments and chasing down overdue invoices.
Andrea stepped in to develop an expense tracker and a client payment tracker, then took over communications with clients to follow up on pending payments. Thanks to her, payments became more consistent, vendor relationships stabilized, and the Director of Finance regained valuable time for strategic priorities.
2. How can your executive assistant run HR, compliance, and onboarding?
HR is one of the most popular executive assistant duties among startup execs. One of our end users, the Director of Operations at a clean energy startup, was managing all HR processes: payroll, reimbursements, benefits, hiring, compliance, and company policies, on top of his core responsibilities.
That’s when his executive assistant took full ownership of HR operations, including processing all contractor and employee payments, managing contracts end-to-end, and coordinating with their broker and HRIS support team to design a competitive benefits package and ensure compliance. She also created a new hire checklist, and started to keep better control of all actionable items when hiring/onboarding a new collaborator.
The results were visible: employees received a more supportive and consistent experience, and the Director of Operations could focus on higher-level strategic work.
3. How can your executive assistant manage IT, access, and company-wide initiatives?
One answer can be found in the example provided by Dania, one of our EAs. She is the executive assistant to the CEO, so naturally, she was in charge of making his life easier. But once he told her about the company’s goal of implementing the use of several AI tools among all team members, she couldn’t wait to jump in and start driving it.
That’s when she took it upon herself to create all kinds of automations and prompts to achieve the goal. She also set up office hours and workshops to train team members and help them reach the next level of their AI game. Another EA took over credential management and cybersecurity training for her executive’s team, freeing an enormous amount of time for her executive to focus on the big picture.
4. How can your executive assistant support you personally and with customer-facing work?
The most obvious executive assistant duties involve helping you with work-related issues, but that doesn’t mean they can’t help with personal matters as well.
An EA’s impact often goes beyond traditional scheduling and task management; they actively remove obstacles and create space for their executives to focus on high-priority work. This EA acted as the personal assistant for one of her execs, and as an EA for the other.
For example, Priscila, EA to the CEO at a Series C startup based in San Francisco, helped her executive with something that could have interrupted his whole day: his windshield needed repairs, and he didn’t have time to take his car to the shop. Priscila managed to coordinate the whole repair remotely and her executive could keep his mind on his work, instead of having to deal with something that would have disrupted his flow. This kind of behind-the-scenes support keeps things moving efficiently and helps maintain momentum.
On the customer-facing side, Daniela, EA at a productivity web app, stepped in to help an executive prepare for a podcast interview, ensuring they were fully briefed and able to show up with confidence and clarity in front of an external audience. Whether managing the unexpected or elevating public-facing opportunities, great EAs bring adaptability and foresight to every corner of their executive’s life.
5. How can your executive assistant step in when you’re out of office?
A great executive assistant can step in and keep things moving without missing a beat when executives are pulled in 10 different directions.
The best EAs don’t just manage calendars and logistics; they step up as trusted partners who can lead in your absence. Some of our executive assistants facilitate town hall meetings on short notice, ensuring that communication flows and the team stays aligned even when the executive can’t be there. Other EAs, like Lucia, have proactively planned offsite team-building activities that help strengthen company culture and foster stronger team connections.
These aren’t small, behind-the-scenes tasks; they’re critical moments that keep the company’s rhythm going. Your EA can serve as your stand-in leader, someone who maintains momentum, drives progress, and upholds your leadership standards when you’re pulled away. On top of that, EAs can handle life details and customer moments that might ot herwise fall through the cracks, giving you the freedom to focus on what matters most while knowing your team and priorities are in capable hands.
What else could your EA take off your plate?
- Manage and execute outbound email campaigns and special projects to support sales and outreach.
- Conduct competitive intelligence by researching hiring trends, market movements, and marketing strategies.
- Lead recruiting workflows, including creating communications strategies, scheduling interviews, and managing resume review processes.
- Organize and communicate ongoing internal process improvements.
- Learn and manage tools like Salesforce to generate reports, track revenue, and monitor project progress.
- Oversee complex financial operations, such as royalty payouts and token distributions for investors and employees.
- Own and manage end-to-end pro forma processes, providing critical financial planning support.
- Strengthen project management functions by developing strategic thinking and acting as a reliable Project Management Office partner.
Ready to explore what an EA could take off your plate? Book a call with our team and see how they can help you lead your team better than ever before.
Fadua is a bilingual advertiser and holds a master’s degree in creative writing. With over ten years of experience, she has written countless advertising and social media campaigns, blogs, interviews, and everything in between. She writes about startups, the impact of executive assistants, and the stories behind their work. When she’s not writing, she is spending quality time with her husband and son, hiking, reading, or discovering new cafés.
